Flyers putting their trust in goalie Emery

BRAYDON COBURN is one of the few Flyers who knew Ray Emery before he landed in Philadelphia as a free agent this summer.

When Emery officially inked his deal on July 1, Coburn took him out to dinner and showed him the area.

"I had known Ray a few years before and we had always been good friends," said Coburn, who is a little more than 2 years younger than Emery. "We went to dinner a couple times when he first got into town and I showed him around a little bit and showed him where I live."

The Flyers changed their goaltenders this season, replacing Martin Biron and Antero Niittymaki with Emery and Brian Boucher. Some think the Flyers are taking a gamble on Emery, who arrived with a checkered history.

But Emery has always been a good teammate.

So when Coburn was rehabilitating from a minor hip surgery to remove a few "bony" fragments several weeks later, Emery returned the favor.

He joined Coburn and Flyers strength and conditioning coach Jim McCrossin for a 6 a.m. swimming-pool exercise to help strengthen Coburn's hip. He didn't need to go to the private swim club in South Jersey for the workout.

Emery didn't want Coburn to have to go alone.

"It was training that he found he could utilize," Coburn said. "He is a good swimmer, actually. He is really good. He swam a lot at the lake near where he lives.

"It was good because it makes it more fun when you have more guys. It makes it more social."

Emery was run out of Ottawa two seasons ago for his off-ice shenanigans. We all know about the 30 traffic stops in Ontario, the punches traded with the team trainer during his exile in Russia last year and his tardiness at practice.

But despite his troubles in Canada's capital city, where they rode him to the Stanley Cup finals in 2006-07, Emery is still friends with many players on the Senators.

He was up there to work out this summer with a few of them. The much-publicized spats with teammates in practice were overhyped. They occur on every NHL team at some point in the season. Emery was targeted because he is Emery.

"I can't speak for anyone else, but I knew what kind of guy he was," Coburn said. "I knew what kind of goalie he was. I'm sure he wishes things went a different way. But for him to come here and get a second chance and a new start, it's like a lot of guys in this locker room. Not everyone has been perfect since the start of their career."

Undoubtedly, the jury was still out on the other players inside the Flyers' locker room with regards to Emery. Few had ever seen him firsthand.

"He is a good guy," Coburn said. "He is a committed guy. We are a tightknit group and we like to take care of our own."

One person who has helped Emery's case in that tightknit community is Flyers coach John Stevens.

Stevens - who grew up about 30 minutes from Emery's hometown of Cayuga, Ontario - met with Emery at his home before the Flyers decided to sign him.

Since then, Stevens - like Coburn - has introduced Emery to the Philadelphia area and helped him settle down this summer when not too many other players were in town.

"We spent quite a bit of time together," Stevens said. "We wanted to try to get to know each other and I wanted to learn to trust him.

"I wanted to know when to push him and when to leave him alone. I have been absolutely thrilled with everything so far. He does everything we ask him."

Stevens has mentored Emery in a way that not many coaches get to mentor a goaltender. Normally, the goalie deals with the goaltending coach instead of directly with the head coach.

For that, Emery is grateful.

"[Stevens] has been with this group of guys for a while," Emery said. "It isn't always easy to jump into that. He's had some success here and you know he wants to win.

"Being a goalie, it's a different relationship you have with the head coach. You're left to do a lot of stuff on your own, save for a few things. You want to have a good relationship there."

Emery says that the time spent here in the summer - hanging with guys like Coburn - was invaluable.

"I didn't want to just fly into a foreign situation and come right into training camp," he said. "I wanted to get to know the guys, the rink and the area."

Emery has settled into Haddonfield, N.J. - at the behest of the Flyers - but has also settled in between the pipes. One thing he does not settle for is shoddy on-ice play. His competitive spirit was evident in the preseason games and the sometimes monotonous training-camp skates.

New Flyers goaltending coach Jeff Reese lauded Emery for not only his technically sound play and movement but also his athleticism.

"Ray does have the personality, the nice cars, the tattoos and the clothes," Stevens said. "But when the skates are on, he is focused in. He doesn't quit on a puck.

"You can tell that he has that competitive edge. You know that he never wants to see the puck go in the net."

This season, Stevens doesn't want to reshape Ray Emery. He just wants him to focus on the ice - where no one doubts that he is good. With that, the sky is the limit. He posted a 33-16-6 record with a 2.47 GAA in Ottawa during that Cup run.

Those stats would make him the Flyers' first bona fide No. 1 goaltender since Ron Hextall.

"I think it is important to let Ray be Ray," Stevens said. "We don't want to recreate Ray. He has a fiery side and he is a competitive person. We want to let his personality remain. He has a personality that doesn't overtake the team."

This year, that might let him overtake everyone else for team MVP. *

For more news and analysis, read Frank Seravalli's blog, Frequent Flyers, at http://go.philly.com/frequentflyers.